April 25, 2006

Denver An Early Frontrunner For Dem 2008 Convention

The 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver is closer to becoming a potential reality, or so Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News says:

And Denver threw its party here at the spring meeting of the Democratic National Committee. It was held to try to convince delegates that Denver would be the perfect place to hold the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

Denver did everything right. There was a great band. There was free food. There was free drink. There was a lot of free food. And a lot of free drink.

There were giant photos displayed right out of a Colorado travel brochure. Imagine a concert at Red Rocks, Mayor John Hickenlooper told a cheering crowd, which seemed quite enthusiastic. Of course, it might have been the champagne. It might have been the goodies bag. It might have been the door prize: two free United Airlines tickets, which presumably could be used to fly two people to a Denver convention.

Most people I talked to here have said Denver was a serious contender. Most put the city in the top three, although it was difficult to pin anyone down as to who the other two might be. Maybe Anaheim. Maybe Vegas.

Clearly, though, it's the right time for Denver, which also made a pitch in 2000. "That was a total stretch," said Chris Gates, who was here to make the Denver pitch. "We were telling people how convenient hotel rooms were in Wyoming."

The Mountain West is obviously a potential growth area for Democrats, who apparently need some. If you take out your handy red-blue divide map, you see that Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada are all swing states that swung red last time. It's the same argument Colorado used here to make a pitch to become a caucus state in what may be a new Democratic primary schedule - with another caucus after Iowa and before the New Hampshire primary.

The Democrats are looking for an early state with diversity and potential. And the convention could be looking for someplace with FasTracks and a big airport and a newly remodeled convention center and the Pepsi Center and diversity and potential and, well, nobody has to sell you. You already live in Colorado. And you know you can hold a convention these days and no one has to stay in Wyoming.

I talked to two Democratic committeemen from Massachusetts who said they were just talking about Denver's chances. Everyone, said David O'Brien, "is high on Denver."

1 Comments:

If we elect a Republican governor in the fall, there's no chance of the Dems holding their convention here. So how much of this talk is just talk, an attempt to generate goodwill towards the party in order to give Ritter a boost?

SP Approved:

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